137 Book: For a convenient summary of research, see the editor's introduction in Altick, Richard D., ed., The Ring and the Book (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971).Google Scholar

Portions of this article originally appeared in a paper read to the Literature, Society and the Sociology of Literature Conference on 18 July 1976 at the University of Essex and have subsequently been published in the transactions of the conference: Literature, Society and the Sociology of Literature, ed. Barker, Francis et al. (Colchester: Univ. of Essex, 1977).Google Scholar They are reprinted here by permission of Mr. David Musselwhite, chairman of the conference. Sordello: For a perceptive and well argued account of the poem, see Mason, Michael, “The Importance of Sordello,” in The Major Victorian Poets: Reconsiderations, ed. Armstrong, Isobel (London: Routledge, 1969), pp. 125–52.Google Scholar

138 (II. 1051–52): References are to The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, ed. Birrell, Augustine and Kenyon, Frederick G., 2 vols. (London: Smith, Elder, 1896).Google Scholar I have numbered the lines afresh with each book instead of continuously throughout the poem, because the Florentine or Centenary editions are not easily available to most readers. For those who wish to translate my references, the books contain the following lines: Book I: 1030; Book II: 1134; Book III: 1089; Book IV: 986.

138 subject-matter: “Mr. Browning has not succeeded in giving any true poetic excuse for telling a story so full of disagreeable elements” (unsigned review, Spectator, 10 05 1873)Google Scholar; “horrible and revolting” (Howells, W. D., Atlantic Monthly, 07 1873)Google Scholar; “a vulgar contemporary story” (DeVane, W. C., A Browning Handbook, 2nd ed. [New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1955]).Google Scholarobscurity: “Fifty-six mortal pages explain, why the story is called Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, but without making the reader understand why” (Howells). contradiction: “There is a little harshness … in the transition from the playful moralizing addressed to Miss Thackeray … to the tragedy which is the proper subject of the volume” (Simcox, E. J., Fortnightly Review, 07 1873).Google Scholarinterference: “He was preoccupied with some didactic purpose” (Simcox, G. A., Academy, 2 06 1873)Google Scholar; “Browning is the puppet-master and then the external examiner, awarding marks to the characters in accordance with a predetermined schedule” (Drew, Philip, The Poetry of Browning: A Critical Introduction [London: Methuen, 1970], p. 331).Google Scholar

140 tuur”: I am indebted to my colleague Susan Harper for drawing my attention to this important source which permeates the tone of the entire poem, acting, in conjunction with a number of image patterns, as a perpetual memento mori as implied in the subtitle: Turf and Towers. Browning's use of the lyric is sufficiently explicit and sustained as to necessitate full quotation:

Wen the turuf is thi tuur,

And thi put is thi bour

Thi wel and thi wite throte

Ssulen wormes to note

Wat helpit the thenne

Al the worilde wnne.

(Browne, Carleton, ed., English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century, No. 30 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932].)Google Scholar

141 Ravissante: Browning portrays Miranda as misreading the etymology of the name and misinformed about real Church history (II.152 ff.). The reference here is to La Delivrande (the name of the historical church which Browning calls La Ravissante), originally Ivrande but altered by paronymic attraction; see Dauzat, Albert, Les noms de liex; origine et evolution etc., 5éd., Bibliothèque des chercheurs et des curiex (Paris: Delagrave, 1957), p. 63.Google Scholar The implication of this for the poem is that those who live by myth, ignoring history, die by myth.

142 mound): The image of men as insects recurs throughout the work. Clara is compared to a butterfly: “Painted Peacock,” “Brimstone Wing” (IV.779–80); feeding “Upon unlimited Miranda-leaf” (IV.840); called “cockatrice” by the cousins (IV.718). The cousins are described as “earwig and blackbeetle” (IV.847), while the priest and nun who assiduously courted Miranda's favour for his wealth, yet consistently refused to sanction his relationship with his wife, are described as dungbeetles (IV.868). Miranda himself is imaged as “let[ting] strange creatures make his mouth their home” (II.337).

144 poem: “Browning's Red Cotton Night-Cap Country,” in Romantic and Victorian: Studies in Memory of William H. Marshall, ed. Elledge, W. P. and Hoffman, R. L. (Rutherford, N. J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 329–45.Google Scholareyes: Browning not only plays with the colour scheme by proposing red for white, but also suggests that the rural torpor which she equates with innocence impedes intellectual, and hence moral, discrimination: “circumvents intelligence” (I.153).

145 melodrama: For example, Browning acts the part of showman at the Chamber of Horrors, gleefully anticipating his audience's recoil from what he is about to uncover (I.1010–26). illusion: Besides the description of Clairvaux (I.608–94) and the symbolic ruin (II. 1–94) already referred to, the poem abounds in numerous deceptive appearances. Clara seems the perfect colour of innocence—white-faced and wearing black mourning and accompanied by “innocent” animals (sheep and goats), yet she is also a Circe figure (I.822–903) who, in echoing Miranda's every wish, is ultimately a blank (her name can mean either white=innocence or clear=blank). She is indifferent to whether he acts the part of the lascivious goat or innocent sheep. The black/white and sheep/goat duality suggests her essential ambivalence and is part of a series of dualisms that permeate the poem, beginning with the white/red cotton night-cap and the choice of titles: Red Cotton Night-Cap Country or Turf and Towers.

147 Catholic: For his religious upbringing and beliefs, see II.120 ff. and IV.268 ff.

149 bonnet”: Flaubert, Gustave, Sentimental Education, trans. Baldick, R. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p. 334.Google Scholar

153 affairs: The evidence for this is overwhelming, though, as presented, it may seem, as intended, on the periphery of Catholic consciousness. The dispute over the coronation (I.433–531) raises questions about the raising and use of Church funds, and indirectly indicates the ecclesiastical struggle between Napoleon III and the Papacy (I.440–42) and the loss of the temporal power of the Church occasioned by the unification of Italy. The power of the clerical party in France ensured Napoleon's support of the generally acknowledged corrupt Papal States in the Campagna and delayed the unification of Italy favoured by English liberals by a decade, compelling the Italians to make common cause with Prussia. The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war sparked off the anticlerical Commune of 1870, whose shadow broods over the poem. The civil war of the Commune is seen by Browning as a national schizophrenia paralleling that of Miranda; see II.687–92 and III.1065–69.

154 solid: Miranda's spiritual identity is portrayed as a kind of liquid constantly alternating between the solid and gaseous state: ice/diamond transformed by heat/cold into vapour/coal according as one or the other aspect of his character asserted itself (III.73–74, 104–07 et passim).

155 bonnet”: See note (“bonnet”) above. story: “The digression … on Milsand … is barely relevant to the main story at all” (Drew, , p. 326).Google Scholar